


Gideon was Sentenced to be Hanged at Dawn

by comicanon



Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Western
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-10
Updated: 2017-10-10
Packaged: 2019-01-15 18:43:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12326694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/comicanon/pseuds/comicanon
Summary: For the crime of scratching up the Hopps daughter, the court sentenced Gideon Gray to confinement at the sheriff's and there be kept until dawn, and then that he be taken to the center of town and there hanged by the neck until he is dead. And may God have mercy upon his soul.





	Gideon was Sentenced to be Hanged at Dawn

**Author's Note:**

> Made for Thematic Thursday - Wild West  
> Special thanks to Canidae and Raccoonfg for editing this story!

It was evening in Bunnyburrow, and Gideon was sentenced to be hanged at dawn.  
“He’s just a kit, though. Not even taller than a wagon wheel.”  
“He’s a fox. Scratched up a bun.”  
“The Hopps daughter. They say he went savage and tried to eat her.”  
“Poor Judy. Getting attacked like that made her queer in the head.”  
“Wasn’t Judy always queer in the head?”  
“Always going on about being a bunny sheriff when she grow up. Judy’s odder than a barn door with hinges down the middle.”  
“Don’t mean no fox can scratch her up without getting hanged.”  
“He’s just a kit, though.”  
“He’s a fox.”

Nick heard all this as he strolled into town, but it wasn’t interesting to him. Hangings were usually bad for business.  
The interesting thing to Nick was that there was a ferret close to tears talking into the barred window of the sheriff's.

“Such a shame what’s happening to the poor boy,” he told the whimpering ferret.  
“And you say his daddy’s a drunk?” he continued. “Such a shame…”  
“And you ain’t got no daddy. You just got him.”  
“Such a shame… Them prey’ll never change their mind, neither. They won’t be happy till he’s had a long drop with a sudden stop.”  
“And I hear the girl he scratched is queer in the head. Hear she’s untuned as a piano been played by a tap dancing horse.”  
“And then you’ll be all alone…”  
“You’d need a miracle to save him.  
“You know,” Nick smiled, “you remind me of me.”  
“Yeah!” Nick smiled even wider. “See, Travis- it's Travis, right? I can call you Travis on account of us being such close friends, right?- See, Travis, I had nowhere else to go, either. Run out of town, just for being a fox like your friend.”  
“Well, like I said, I had nowhere else to go, so-- I wandered. I wandered the desert for twenty-seven days and twenty-eight nights.”  
“And on the twenty-eighth day, I fell exhausted into the sands and said, ‘Lord, either send me a miracle or send me to hell, cause you ain’t shown me no kindness all my life and I ain’t going to give none unless I see some!’”  
“And so,” Nick said as he helped Travis into his covered wagon, “the Lord sent me a miracle…”

“The Wa’cha Ma’callem tribe say he’s been alive one thousand times, each as a different mammal.”  
“They say his father was the Sun and his mother was the Moon, and that he sees day and night, and all four seasons, at once.”  
“Only the wind can say his real name, which is written in the stars, but to us mortals, he is known as…”  
“...Bigg’um Finnick’um!” Nick declared as he pulled open the bead curtains and revealed the fox, painted and wearing a crudely carved elephant mask, meditating under multicolored candles.  
“But he’s so small,” whispered Travis.  
“You should see the rest of the Wa’cha Ma’callems,” Nick winked back.

“And you say he’ll help Gid not get hanged?!”  
“I never said whether he will or he won’t!” Nick clarified. “But…” he frowned, his eyes darting in concern, “I can ask… in his native tongue...”  
Nick prostrated himself in front of Finnick. “Oh, Bigg’um Finnick’um! You help’um young tube’m so his friend’um don’t get strung up’um?”  
He scooched up to Finnick, listening intently to his mask. He nodded several times, Travis nodding along hopefully with him--  
\--and then Nick’s eyes widened, and Travis held his breath.  
“He says he can help!” Nick wiped sweat from his brow as he gripped Travis’ shoulder.  
“He can?!”  
“Yes, but he will need your help.”  
“What can I do to help? I’ll do anything!”  
“He says,” Nick licked his lips, “that he needs money…”

It was almost sunrise in Bunnyburrow, and Gideon was sentenced to be hanged at dawn.  
“It might just be enough…” Nick worried, hiding his glee as he counted the bills and coins.  
“It's all I got! Me and Gid saved it, we was going to run off! I-I don’t think I can get no more!”  
“It might just be enough.”  
Nick prostrated himself once again to Finnick and offered the money.  
There was silence.  
For a moment, everything was still.  
Travis gulped.  
But slowly... Finnick began to chant.  
He stood up.  
He danced, and the flames danced with him.  
He tossed powder into the flame, and there was a blinding flash.  
Travis shielded his eyes, and when he glanced back up, Nick was corking a glass bottle.  
“This is a magic elixir,” Nick explained as he handed Travis the bottle. “It’s power will protect your friend.”  
“It’s almost dawn!” Nick hurried the ferret clutching the bottle to his chest along, “you have to go! Go, save your friend! Use the magic of the elixir and save him!”  
Finnick and Nick watched him run as fast as he could to the center of the town, where a crowd was gathering and Gideon was being led from the sheriff's.  
“Let’s go,” grunted Finnick, tossing the mask aside.  
“Aw, c’mon,” Nick smirked. “We just made a week’s worth in a single day, and you got to play Bigg’um! You always say you like doing the Bigg’um act more than you like playing the kid with cholera, cured after a single sip of Dr. Nick’s Cure-All Curative Restorative Restoration Solution!”  
“I don’t want to see this, Wilde.”  
“What," Nick beckoned Finnick to watch from afar, "you don’t want to see the magic?”

“...sentenced to be hanged by the neck until death, with the victim, her family, and the whole town as witness,” the mayor finished reading.  
“Everything ready?” the mayor asked the sheriff.  
Gideon had a sack over his head and a noose around his neck.  
“Everything’s ready,” the mayor huffed. “Let’s get on with it.”  
The sheriff stepped forward and grabbed the lever.  
“Wait!” yelled Travis. “You can’t!”  
“What’s going on?”  
“It's the ferret boy.”  
“Get him out of here.”  
“Wait!” yelled Travis. He uncorked the bottle and tossed water into the air. “You can’t hang Gid! You can’t!”  
“What in the world is this?”  
“It's water! He’s spraying everybody!”  
“Get him out of here!”  
Travis’ beaming face faltered for a moment as he looked at the crowd, but he smiled broadly once again as he turned and tossed water at Gideon.  
“The hell is that? Am I being hanged or drowned?”  
“You ain’t being hanged, Gideon!” Travis exclaimed. “They can’t kill you! You’re free! You’re saved!”

Nick was biting his hat to keep from laughing out loud.  
“Let’s go,” grunted Finnick.  
“Aw, c’mon,” Nick snickered.  
“I don’t want to see this, Wilde.”  
“Look, look! You’re missing all the magic, Bigg’um!”

“Hocus pocus!” Travis sang, sloshing water into the air.  
“Hocus pocus! Abracadabra!” The bottle was almost empty. “Alakazam!”  
“He’s gone crazy.”  
“Boy ain’t right in the head.”  
“Get him out of here.”  
“You can’t kill him!” Travis shouted. He tried tossing more water, but the bottle was empty, and his eyes began to well up in disbelief. “You can’t hang Gid!”  
“Wait!” Travis struggled against the mayor as he was pulled by the scruff of his neck. “You can’t kill him! You can’t hang Gid! He’s my only friend!”  
“Wait!” Travis was desperate make his way back, but he was caught again and this time the mayor held him by his neck and his tail, and all he could do was flail his legs and shake the empty bottle as he was marched away. “You can’t! You can’t! Please! You can’t!”

“I don’t want to see this,” Nick turned away, putting his hat low over his eyes.  
“Such a shame.” Finnick was already in the wagon, leaving Nick to tie everything up so they could roll out.  
Nick set his jaw firm and his eyes focused as he prepared the wagon, and pretended not to hear Travis yelling “You can’t! You can’t!”

“You can’t!”  
And everyone stopped. Even Travis.  
“You can’t hang Gid,” declared Judy.  
“The Hopps girl what Gid scratched up?”  
“She was always queer in the head.”  
“Get her out of here.”  
“You can’t hang Gid! I won’t let you!” she screamed, and she raced up the platform and held the lever firm.  
“Judy, move.”  
“No!”  
“He needs to be hanged, Judy. He attacked you.”  
“I forgive him!”  
“It ain’t like that, he attacked you and now he’s got to be hanged. Now move aside.”  
“He didn’t attack me!” Judy yelled. “I attacked him! I got scratched cause I attacked him and he was just trying to get me off!”  
“That ain’t true!” shouted Sharla. “Gideon was bullying us and Judy told him to stop, and he scratched her!”  
“She’s lying!” Judy shouted back.  
“I ain’t no liar! We all saw it, we was all there!”  
“They’re all liars! I attacked him because I’m queer in the head! I’m more befuddled than a snake slithered up a lasso!”  
“Stu,” moaned the mayor, “remove your daughter.”  
“Judy, come here!” Bonnie shouted.  
“Pa, it ain’t fair! They can’t hang Gideon!”  
“It’s the law, Judy!” Stu tugged her away.  
“What if it were me up there?!” Judy cried, tugging at Stu’s arm. “You wouldn’t want me to hang! Don’t let them hang him, pa! Don’t let them hang Gideon!”

“Well,” the mayor shrugged, “if you’re sure...”  
“We’re sure,” Stu nodded.  
“Just let the boy go.” Bonnie stroked Judy’s cheek. “It's been enough. This has all been enough.”

“She’s queer in the head,” muttered Nick as the bunny went up and joined the hug Gideon and Travis were in.  
“Let’s get out of here, Nick.”  
“The whole town’s queer in the head,” muttered Nick as the crowd broke up and wandered away.  
“Nick, let’s go!”  
“Nothing short of a miracle.” Nick fondled the money in his pocket. He hoisted the wagon’s handles and began to walk out towards the road. He halted and he waited, and he waved his arm to the bunny, who was slow and cautious coming over to him.  
“You give this to that Travis kid,” he said. “Tell him… well, don’t tell him where you got it, just give it to him.”  
Judy nodded and sprinted away.  
“What’s the hold up?” called out Finnick.  
“Nothing,” Nick grunted, hoisting the wagon once again.


End file.
